1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a peritoneal function testing method, peritoneal function testing apparatus using a computer, and peritoneal function testing program.
1. Background Art
It is believed that there are presently about 250,000 patients with chronic renal failure in Japan. Of them, 96% to 97% receive hemodialysis as a maintenance treatment while the remaining 3% to 4% receive peritoneal dialysis.
“Dialysis” here means a process of removal of certain molecules from body fluid due to a concentration gradient by filtering it across a membrane, making use of different molecular weights. Thus, this process assists impaired renal function of the patients by dissolving various substances which are accumulated in the body through metabolic activities solutes (such as urea (U) as a uremic toxin and creatinine (Cr)), electrolytes (Ca2+, Cl−, Na+, and K+), excess water and the like out of the body fluid into a dialysis solution, and by then discharging the dialysis solution from the body as drained fluid. Two distinguished methods used for dialysis are hemodialysis (HD) and peritoneal dialysis (PD). Hemodialysis is a mechanical blood purification procedure to pass blood through the extracorporeal circulation, while peritoneal dialysis is a blood purification procedure achieved by infusing a dialysis solution into the peritoneal cavity and filtering blood through the peritoneum. Conventionally, either one of the dialysis procedures has been applied to the patients. In the case when deficient renal function cannot be fully compensated, it is considered as desirable to perform extracorporeal dialysis treatment using hemodialysis.
With peritoneal dialysis, the patients perform dialysis treatment mainly at home. The home dialysis involves the repetition of the following steps several times a day: introduction of a dialysis solution into the peritoneal cavity performed by patients themselves using a catheter; retention of the introduced dialysis solution for several hours; and then drainage of the dialysis solution. The patient records the amount of excess water drained from the body (referred to as the “volume of water removal”) every time when a dialysis solution is drained, and submits the records to doctors in a subsequent medical examination to obtain a prescription. Such a peritoneal dialysis procedure is called CAPD (Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis).
Doctors generally conduct PET (Peritoneal Equilibration Test, 1987) on a patient, and selects an appropriate remedy based on the results of the test conducted on peritoneal function of the patient. PET classifies peritoneal function into four categories, High (large volume of water removal and small uremic toxin removal), HighAverage, Low Average, and Low (small volume of water removal and large uremic toxin removal) by plotting the following ratios against a PET curve: a ratio of the concentration of creatinine in the drained fluid and that in the body fluid (D/PCrea) and a ratio of the concentration of glucose in the drained fluid and that in the dialysis solution in the peritoneum immediately after the injection of the dialysis solution (D/DOglu). It should be noted that PET is conducted with a retention period of 4 hours and 2 L of a dialysis solution with a medium osmotic pressure (400 mOsm/kg-solvent). The PET curve was prepared using the average values and standard deviations of D/PCrea and D/DOglu calculated based on. PET results in 100 cases of Americans and Europeans. PET is a simple testing method and offers an option on a peritoneal dialysis modality based on the categories, thus is clinically useful. In Japan, 60% or more of the patients with chronic renal failure have taken PET.
In recent years, a peritoneal dialysis system that examines the state of peritoneal-function of a patient with use of a computer such as a PC has been developed (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Publication No. 2000-140100). This peritoneal dialysis system can evaluate peritoneal function such as the volume of water removal, MTAC (an overall mass transfer-area coefficient), Kt/V (urea nitrogen clearance), and CCr (creatinine clearance) by computing mathematical models such as Pyle-Popovich model, which is known as a macroscopic model of peritoneal dialysis, based on patient's data such as the concentration of each solute, the volume of water removal and so on obtained by conducting PET.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Publication No. 2000-140100
Patent Document 2: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Publication No. 2005-27886
However, a peritoneal function testing method using the above-mentioned PET has the following problems.
That is, while peritoneal function needs to be assessed with comprehensive evaluations of peritoneal function of each patient, such as the rates of solute removal and transperitoneal water removal, only parameters such as concentrations of solutes and water removal volume can be calculated from the results of PET. In other words, PET calculates respective parameters merely as discrete numerical values and does not reveal a specific correlation therebetween. This is considered to be a critical problem when, for example, judging a switching point from peritoneal dialysis to hemodialysis due to a deterioration of peritoneal function.
Also, conventionally, peritoneal function is classified into four graduated categories (High-category, High Average-category, Low average-category, and Low-category) based on the numerical range of MTAC obtained in PET to provide a judgmental basis for the above-mentioned switching point. That is, by assessing peritoneal function of a patient according to the category the patient currently belongs, a basis for a current and future dialysis planning is provided. However, although each category is conventionally considered to be in a numerical range of its own, study by the inventors of the present invention has revealed that, as shown in FIG. 10, multiple categories belong to numerical ranges which overlap with each other. This indicates that a single MTAC numerical value belongs to more than one category, suggesting that the accuracy of categorization is low. This uncertainty becomes a major issue especially when a judgment is to be made on the above-mentioned switching point, and is a problem in dialysis planning requiring an early resolution. If the switching point is misjudged, excessive strain may be placed on the peritoneum, causing a possibility for the patient to have complications with peritonitis or encapsulated peritoneal sclerosis.
The present invention was conceived in view of the above problems, and aims to provide, although relatively simple, a method for testing peritoneal function with a higher accuracy than the conventional testing methods, a peritoneal function testing apparatus and a peritoneal function testing program which use the above-mentioned method.